


A Moment to Breathe

by m_class



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Action, Back-To-Back Badasses, Blood and Violence, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Major Character Injury, Punching, Sickbay fluff, Suspense, away mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 10:04:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13028742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_class/pseuds/m_class
Summary: An away mission gone wrong! After a shuttle crash, Chakotay wakes up alone in a smoke-filled shuttle, and must go in search of the missing Janeway and Paris. With the odds stacked against them, will our intrepid heroes survive?!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ailtara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ailtara/gifts), [devovere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovere/gifts), [lokobookworm95](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokobookworm95/gifts), [CaptAcorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptAcorn/gifts).



> Dedicated with lotsa love to my Accountability Cheerleaders, Ailtara, Devovere, lokobookworm95, and CaptAcorn. Their comments kept me awake and going during an unexpected late-night group project deadline last week, as I wrote the first half of Chapter 1 of this fic a few sentences every half hour so I could stay awake and not let my IRL groupmates down. :)

Chakotay opens his eyes to a haze of smoke. It takes a moment for him to get his bearings, but when he does, he pushes himself upright, peering around the shuttle. “Paris?” There is no sign of his crewmates, upright or otherwise. “Kathryn?” 

Nothing. 

The final moments of the shuttle’s descent come back to him, sparks flying and Kathryn shouting orders, g-force rising and his vision swimming as Paris desperately attempted to slow their descent. And then nothing. And now...

“Kathryn!” Grabbing the edge of the engineering console he formerly lay wedged behind, Chakotay pulls himself to his feet. His head aches, and his body feels as though he’s lost a boxing match; cautiously letting go of the wall, he shuffles forward, checking the shuttle from front to back. There is no sign of either pilot or captain.    
  
Grabbing a medkit from the wall, Chakotay presses a painkiller hypo to his neck, then closes the kit and clips it to his belt. Drawing his phaser, he steps out of the crashed shuttle into the dim, misty forest outside. 

Faintly, in the distance between the trees, he can make out a flickering light.   
  
A small squirrel-like mammal scurries across the forest floor as he moves slowly towards the light and the sound of muffled voices. He pivots, pointing his phaser at it before sheepishly relaxing and continuing forward. Despite almost giving him a heart attack, he is grateful for the presence of the small critters; the rustling of the forest means his own approach will more likely go unnoticed.   
  
The flickering light resolves into a campfire. Five hulking alien figures sit around it, cleaning wicked-looking bladed weapons. Their skin is lumpen and their hair is startlingly purple. A few feet outside the circle, Janeway and Paris lean against each other, hands tied behind their backs. Paris lies slumped, eyes closed, wicked bruises darkening his jaw and temple. Kathryn’s nose is bloodied, but she’s conscious, eyes glinting in the light of the fire as she sizes up their kidnappers.   
  
Carefully, Chakotay makes his way through the trees around the outside of the clearing until he is a few feet behind his crewmates, hidden in the shadows outside the firelight. “Kathryn,” he breathes. “I’m here.”   
  
She flicks the fingers of her bound hands in response.   
  
“I’m going to toss you a laser scalpel. Use it to free yourself. As soon as you and Paris are untied, I’m going to try to phaser all five.“   
  
If he isn’t able to stun all five large hostiles, in other words, he wants Kathryn to be able to run.   
  
She flicks her fingers again in acknowledgement, and taking a deep breath, he shies the small scalpel at her hands.   
  
“It landed about a handspan short. You should be able to reach it.”   
  
Holding his breath, he watches as she leans infinitesimally backwards, fingers straining until their tips finally find the tool. Breathing slowly in and out, he watches her sever the ties, then carefully, keeping her body in the same position, reach a hand to undo Paris’s. Keeping one eye on her progress, he aims the phaser, preparing to fire.   
  
The moment Paris’s hands are free, Chakotay squeezes the trigger, hitting the first hostile square in the chest. He goes down, but the next one, who takes a glancing blow to the shoulder, does not, only whipping his head around to meet Chakotay’s eyes with his own red beady ones. In an instant, he springs across the clearing, and Chakotay dives out of the way just in time, landing face-first in the brush and rolling to point the phaser at his attacker. He stuns him just as he leaps, and the alien lands on Chakotay like a sack of rocks.   
  
Groaning, Chakotay wriggles out from the stunned alien and leaps into the clearing, where Kathryn is wrestling one of the remaining three aliens in the dirt. A second alien points his weapon at the two of them, as though seeking an opening as the two roll over and over, perilously close to the crackling fire. The other is holding Paris, still unconscious, with the tip of his bladed weapon pointed at the human man’s throat.   
  
Not permitting himself to think of the danger Kathryn is in, Chakotay takes the opening, stunning the alien holding Paris a blade-flick away from death. Both of them flop to the ground; the other standing alien turns and leaps at Chakotay, knocking the phaser from his hand and away into the underbrush. Chakotay lands a punch on his jawline, then ducks under his arm to drag Paris towards the center of the clearing, where Kathryn is leaping to her feet, her opponent holding a hand over his bloody face for a moment before he too rises and falls back into an attack stance. In the moment it takes the two remaining alien attackers to regroup, Janeway and Chakotay run together to stand protectively over Paris. Glancing at each other, they turn back-to-back, fists raised.

The two remaining aliens circle. Chakotay can feel Kathryn breathing hard, her shoulder blades lightly touching his. He watches the hostile facing him, every one of his senses alive and alert, waiting for the first tensing of a muscle or flicker of an eye to tell him when the alien is about to attack.

The two leap forward at the same time, and Chakotay grunts as he shoves the full force his weight against the alien’s arm, blocking him from swinging his weapon downward. From the jerk of motion at his back, Kathryn seems to have executed a high kick, and there is a grunt of pain from her opponent. Chakotay thrusts a fist under his attacker’s guard in a winding punch to the abdomen, then grabs the arm holding the weapon and twists, simultaneously bending his knees to throw the larger humanoid off balance. He thuds to the ground and Chakotay tackles him, wishing for a phaser as he fumbles open the medkit still strapped to his waist, grabbing for a hypospray.

The administration of the knockout hypo does little at first, and the alien throws Chakotay off momentarily, but his movements are sluggish now, and Chakotay is able to get a knee into his chest and punch him, hard, in the face. He stops struggling after that, though still appearing semiconscious; Chakotay springs to his feet instantly, pivoting towards Kathryn and her opponent.

The two are both still on their feet, the alien swiping his blade repeatedly at Kathryn as she ducks under and around his movements, delivering kicks and blows wherever he lets his guard drop. Grabbing the fallen alien’s weapon, Chakotay joins her, meeting the next swing of the attacker’s blade with his own. Growling in rage, the alien swings his weapon again, but Chakotay has given Kathryn the opening she needs; before the blades can connect, she has knocked him off his feet with a final hard, sweeping kick.

They stand over the alien together, Chakotay pointing the weapon at his throat, and with a furious glare at both of them, their unknown enemy stays down.

Kathryn slips the medkit off Chakotay’s belt. “The medical tricorder should be enough to find your phaser.”

“I think it flew off that way.” He jerks his head to indicate direction, not taking his eyes, or the bladed weapon, off the fully conscious enemy.

She’s back in less than a minute; a few stun blasts later, and Kathryn and Chakotay are tying up all five unconscious purple-haired attackers.

“The medical tricorder is pretty sure there’s no one around for at least a hundred meters, so even if these lovely people have friends their way, at least we have a moment to breathe.” She snaps it shut, brushing a strand of sweaty hair behind her ear.

“You all right?” One of Kathryn’s eyes is swelling shut to match her bloody nose; for his part, Chakotay can feel a split in his lip, and a deep ache in the front of his shoulder. He shivers; now that the fight is over, the evening air is cold.

“Yes. You?”

“Yeah. Think I might have fractured my collarbone again, but the pain’s not too bad.”

She gives him a quick grin. “The doctor won’t be too happy about that.”

“Hey, it isn’t as though he can accuse me of getting another boxing injury! And the very  _ first  _ fracture was on an away mission, anyway,” he adds righteously.

“And whose choice was it to go boxing a few days later?”

Chakotay straightens up, shivering again. How did he not notice how cold it was when he first left the shuttle? “Holodeck safeties limit the combatants’ hits to moderate force.”

“Which, it would seem, is a bit too much for a recently-healed collarbone.” Kathryn lays the much-abused medkit onto the ground next to the dying fire, kneeling next to Paris to examine him. “I’m siding with the EMH on this one.” 

“As though you would  _ never  _ have done the exact same thing.”

“On the holodeck, Chakotay? The worst that will happen to me in  _ my  _ holonovel is a scolding from Da Vinci. Danger is for away missions.” She frowns at the tricorder readings. “He’s not in immediate danger, but his pressures are pretty high. He needs to be in sickbay.”

“Is is safe to move him? I’d rather be in the shuttle if the welcoming committee has any friends on the way.” The words feel strangely distant as they come from his mouth; he frowns, shaking his head to clear it.

“Should be fine. Can you carry him? I’ll cover you both with the phaser on the off chance anyone shows up.”

“Yes…” Chakotay tries to bend down, but something happens on the way to the ground; instead moving gracefully into a crouch, he has cratered onto his hands and knees, breathing hard. 

“Chakotay?”

“Just...I…” His vision is blurring, and another chill wracks his body.

Kathryn is kneeling in front of him, her hands on his shoulders. Her mouth is moving, but he can’t hear her words anymore. Her eyes scan him up and down, and she is reaching to touch his side, her fingers coming away red.

The alien he stunned, the one who fell over on top of him. His blade. He tries to tell Kathryn that he’s sorry, that he didn’t feel the wound until now, that she needs to take Paris and get to the shuttle in case more hostiles come, but his voice is no longer obeying his commands.

The last thing he sees, as Kathryn lays him gently onto his other side, one hand reaching for the medkit again, is her lips forming words. She is saying his name, his name and something else, but he can’t make out her other words, and he can’t tell her he’s sorry for that.


	2. Chapter 2

Chakotay wakes slowly. He is lying on a warm, dry surface, covered with a soft blanket, and he luxuriates for a moment, halfway between waking and sleeping, before the memories fly back together.

Opening his eyes, he twists his head back and forth, too frantic for a moment to take in his surroundings, but they resolve almost immediately into calm whites and greys. Sickbay. Voyager.

“Chakotay! Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay. Everything’s okay.” B’Elanna is standing over him, taking his hand in both of hers. “Tom and the Captain are fine,” she says soothingly. “Everyone is fine.”

He relaxes back onto the biobed. “B’Elanna.” His throat is dry; the word is barely more than a hoarse whisper.

“Everyone is fine,” she repeats.

“What...how long…”

“You’ve been in sickbay for three days. Tom was released a day ago. The Captain keeps coming in to check on you, but the Doctor kicked her out this morning to get some sleep, and I think she finally is, because she hasn’t commed since.”

“The Captain is all right? More hostiles didn’t come?”

“Everyone’s fine. You can ask her for details, but apparently there wasn’t any more fighting after you passed out.” B’Elanna sits back down in her chair, tugging it closer to the side of his bed; she was, he realizes, sitting here just to be with him. “So. Is it true? You fought off fifteen nine-foot-tall aliens with your bare hands, standing back-to-back over the prone body of my shuttle-crashing husband until the clearing around you swam red with the blood of your enemies?”

Chakotay groans. “They were seven feet tall at most; there were five, not fifteen; minimal blood was drawn, and…” He frowns, forehead wrinkling. “And actually, the rest of that is...pretty accurate. Well, we’d stunned the first three before I lost the phaser so we only fought the last two off back-to-back, and then I used a hypospray at one point, but…”

“The two of you fought two seven-foot hostiles to the ground with your bare fists? Not bad, Chakotay.” B’Elanna grins broadly. “Not bad at all.”

“Think the ship will still be impressed with the slightly less illustrious truth?”

“Who knows? _I_ won’t be sharing it.”

He chuckles.

Oops. Yes, that collarbone definitely must have broken.

“No more nearly dying on away missions, though, hmm?” B’Elanna regards him seriously. “Janeway was as close to panicked as she gets by the time we found you all, and we need both our captain and our first officer in good working order.”

“I’ll do my best.” He must still be on sedatives, because everything feels fuzzy and warm.

The Doctor bustles over then, but B’Elanna rolls her eyes at Chakotay behind his back as he lectures, and Chakotay relaxes back into the pillow. Even through the sedative, he can feel his body ache lightly.

“How are you feeling, Commander?” the EMH finishes.

“I feel…” He grins to himself. “I feel like I’ve been in a hell of a fight.”

 

_Stay with me._

In her dreams, she holds Chakotay’s hands, leaning over his unconscious form, demanding of him, _Stay with me._ But the night grows darker, and his pulse grows weaker, and she knows that her words are useless, and--

Janeway’s eyes fly open, and she takes a deep breath, blowing it out through her nose.

Everyone is all right.

Tom and Chakotay lay there, fading away slowly and quickly respectively, and she sat, doing her best to care for them with a half-empty medkit while keeping one eye on the dark forest, and then the transporter beam took them to the controlled chaos of sickbay, and then Chakotay was all right. The Doctor was putting something sweet and hot and non-caffeinated into her heads as he took a dermal regenerator to her face and told her that Chakotay was going to survive, that he and Tom were both going to be all right.

What time is it? How long has it been since he kicked her out of sickbay? She squints at the clock.

16:37.

She sits up so fast her head spins.

“Janeway to Sickbay.”

“Sickbay here.”

“How is Commander Chakotay?”

“The Commander is continuing to recover steadily. He is awake and talking with Lieutenant Torres.”

“Good.” She relaxes. “Thank you.”

“And how are you feeling? Have you experienced any pain? Tiredness? Abnormal vision or hearing?”

“I’m fine.” She shakes her head to clear it. “I slept fifteen hours.”

“I should think so. I appreciate your care and concern for both Mr. Paris and Mr. Chakotay, but there is a limit to the amount of time I can have you _lurking_ in my sickbay while in need of rest yourself. I--”

“Yes, yes, I take your point. Ensign Paris is doing all right as well?”

“According to his wife, he is right as rain and enjoying some holodeck time with Mr. Kim. I shudder to think what ‘historical’ program they are rotting their brain cells away with this time.”

“Right. Thank you, Doctor.”

After a long, relieved yawn, she is just swinging her legs over the edge of the bed when her combadge pings again.

“Chakotay to Janeway.”

“Chakotay.” She smiles. “How are you feeling? I’ll come by sickbay in just a few--”

“No, you won’t. We’re both in one piece, and I heard what you told the Doctor. Stay in bed.”

“Why do you think I’m still in...” She trails off, petulant. It isn’t as though she can deny it.

Chakotay must discern her thought process from the other end of the line, because he laughs.

“Just because the Doctor heals the bruises doesn't mean you're not feeling the hits. No one on the senior staff will think the less of you if you sleep til next week. After all,” he adds, and she can hear the grin in his voice, “according to B’Elanna and the ship at large, we fought fifteen nine-foot aliens until the clearing ran red with their blood.”

“Did we.” Grinning herself, Janeway settles back against the pillows.

“I'm not sure where she got her information. Presumably not her husband, given that he was out cold the whole time.”

“I really do think the speed with which Voyager tall tales spread is getting more impressive every year.”

“Well, at least this is just a glorified twist on the truth. Remember the time word spread B’Elanna had accidentally married an alien diplomat on an away mission, when she'd been on shift, on Voyager, the whole time?”

“Vividly. She came to my ready room to demand an explanation before I'd even heard the rumor, so it took a few minutes before we could even understand what the other person was talking about. We never did figure out how that one got started,” Janeway finishes, shaking her head at the memory.

“Relatively modest, then, a clearing swimming red with the blood of our slightly expanded group of enemies.”

“ _Was_ their blood even red? I think it was closer to green.”

“Maybe they’re related to Vulcans.”

“Oh, don’t say that. I can already hear Tom on the bridge: ‘Hey Tuvok, did you know the Captain and the Commander had to valiantly battle to save my life from some of your Delta Quadrant brethren?'”

At the mention of Tom, Janeway hears a deeply satisfied chuckle from the other end of the line. “On the contrary, I think Tom might be keeping his mouth shut about this particular mission.”

She frowns. “Because he was injured? He isn’t the type to be vain about getting knocked out and missing the fight.”

“Oh, not the fight. He knows he won’t be able to rib me about my piloting record for at least a few weeks. _I_ wasn’t the one who crashed the shuttle.”

Janeway laughs. “You know, now that you mention it, that might be an _excellent_ topic to mention next time our helmsman decides to make some smart remarks on the bridge.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

She smiles at the warm amusement in his tone, shifting onto her side before changing the conversation to a somewhat more serious subject.  “How _are_ you feeling, Chakotay? That was a hell of an away mission.”

“I’m all right. I feel like I’ve gone twelve rounds in the ring, and I bet I’m not the only one.”

“No,” she agrees. “When we first got back, I’d never wanted a hot bath more.” She keeps her tone light, despite the memory that floats to the surface of her mind of the reality of the first minutes after their return, Tuvok’s arm around her shoulders as she sat numb and useless on a biobed, watching the Doctor furiously attempting save Chakotay’s life.

As though Chakotay is reading her mind, he adds, “As for my--injury, it’s fine. The doctor’s putting me on light duty for a week, but it’s all patched up, and I’ll be eating the preprogrammed menu for iron and water restoration. A course I believe you’re personally familiar with.”

“Hey. We’ve all had our bumps and bruises here in the Delta Quadrant. And, uh, stabbings.”

He doesn’t laugh at her attempt to return to casual banter, however. After a moment, his voice comes gently over the combadge. “Kathryn?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry for doing that to you. That must have been a hell of a wait for Voyager. Both of us injured, you alone.”

She is silent for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “It wasn’t pleasant. But you’re both fine, and that’s what counts. And you have nothing to be sorry for, Chakotay. _I'm_ not the one in sickbay on the iron replacement program. And after all," she adds, "you saved both of us while we were still tied up like turkeys.”

“Any time.” His voice is steady and calm again. “Although after I tossed you that scalpel, I’d say you saved yourself.”

“And who would have had my back if you hadn’t been there? A friendly woodland marsupial?”

“Oh, you saw them too? Charming little critters, weren’t they?”

“Charming they might be, but avid amatuer boxers they were not. I assume.”

“Well, this avid amateur boxer was glad to have an equally avid changquan student at his back. Assuming those little squirrels weren’t martial arts masters, either.”

She hmms in amusement, then adds thoughtfully, “It wasn’t bad, was it, in a way? To have to just do some uncomplicated punching for once?”

Chakotay bursts out laughing; she has to wait nearly half a minute before he composes himself enough to respond. “ _Kathryn_. If fighting five hulking hostile aliens with nothing but our fists and one lost phaser is your idea of a relaxing vacation, we need to talk. About you trying out the holodeck’s boxing simulations, for starters.”

“Fine. I’ll try it.” Laughter aside, his words are sounding increasingly tired, and she smiles affectionately. “But not today. Get some sleep, Commander.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She laughs. “Janeway out.”

She's still lying on top of the covers, rather than under them, after her aborted attempt to head to sickbay, and she hesitates for a minute, considering getting up and reading, or perhaps sneaking over to Engineering--it doesn’t count as returning to duty against doctor’s orders if she’s just taking a light tour of her own ship’s department, does it?

But Chakotay wasn’t kidding about the soreness. She does, indeed, feel like she’s been in a fight.

And for once, there don’t seem to be any emotional wounds or shipwide tensions or even a mountain of paperwork in the wake of this brutal but uncomplicated away mission.

Smiling, Janeway snuggles back under the comforters, closing her eyes to go back to sleep.


End file.
